


Any Human Disclosure

by Moebius



Series: The Heart and Understanding [5]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Age of Steel Universe, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon, F/F, Gen, Sort Of, Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff Happens
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-14
Packaged: 2019-06-27 11:43:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15684747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moebius/pseuds/Moebius
Summary: After awhile traveling through time and space together, Rose and Clara run into a familiar friend.





	Any Human Disclosure

**Author's Note:**

> Has it really been 2 years? Wow. I guess I got inspired by the Thirteenth Doctor to _finally_ continue the series and delve a little into Clara and Rose's adventures off of Earth. Of course, I skipped over a bunch of those adventures to get to this story, but I may go back to them at some point.
> 
> Anyway, this is part 5, and while I think you can probably figure out what's going on without reading the other 4, they may help. 
> 
> This installment's Jane Austen quote comes from _Emma_ : "Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure; seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised or a little mistaken.

“Hello!”

“Hello.”

“... Hello!” 

“Hello?”

“Clara?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t know me?”

Clara raised her eyebrow. She seemed to get asked that question a lot, usually by John, or past Johns, who were the Doctor, sort of, or… she started to look around for Rose, who should have been back by then, when a thought occurred to her. “John?”

The woman raised her eyebrows. “Yes, I suppose, but not for awhile now.” 

“You’re a woman!”

“Well don’t go shouting it, I was trying to be subtle.” She flicked the braces she wore, wincing a little as they snapped back to her chest. “Ouch.”

“Does Rose know?”And what should I call you? And how did you do that? I thought you’re not able to,” Clara searched for the right word, which she had lost somewhere along the way. She was certain Rose had told her once. “Change?”

“No, John is fine now that I think about it, and honestly I thought I couldn’t regenerate but maybe I’m a bit more Time Lordy than we all thought.” She grinned, cheekily. “Does that cover everything?”

“Wouldn’t it be Time Lady?”

“Technically Time Lady-y, in that usage, Miss Oswald the English teacher, but I think we can both agree than the English Language can be a bit limited in both gender and time. Can’t we?” John pushed her knuckles against Clara’s chin, in a “well, you tried” sort of gesture. 

Clara thwapped at her hand. “Why are you here, John?” She’d found, in the few months that she and Rose had been traveling, that they rarely ran into John unless he had a reason. Or “she” now, Clara supposed, though she also supposed that they might bump into the John that’s a him still, or maybe was a him again, or maybe neither or both or something else entirely, time travel being what it was and John being what she was. What they both were, she thought, not for the first time, was a bit of a headache. Why hadn’t they run into this version before? Then again, Rose said there were a lot of them out there, potentially, because there had been a lot of them in the universe she’d come from. 

Alternate universes were also a bit of a headache, but John, time travel, and alternate universes brought Rose to her, so Clara was more than willing to suffer through some headaches. 

It was at that moment, before John could answer Clara’s question, Rose returned, holding a bunch of flowers in one hand and a mug of something in another. Considering she’d gone out for a map, Clara was a combination of amused and confused at the results. Rose smiled at her and opened her mouth, probably to explain, before her eyes slid past Clara and landed on John. “Doctor!”

John beamed. “You do know me! Brilliant!”

Rose shook her head. “No, I saw your picture. A long time ago, when I first went looking for you. At Clive’s house.” 

“Ah, but you remembered all these years later.” 

“Well, yeah.” She smiled that lopsided smile that always put a flutter into Clara’s stomach, before turning to her and handing her the flowers she’d retrieved. “I never forget a pretty woman’s face. You’re northern again.”

“Hm,” John tilted her head. “I suppose I am.” 

Clara looked between the two of them. Rose shrugged. “The Doctor sounded like he was from the North when I met him. I guess she’s gone retro.”

“Gallifrey’s a good bit bigger than Earth, there’s quite a lot of north to be from.” 

Rose laughed at John, fondly. She hooked her arm into Clara’s. “Like the flowers?” 

“They’re very pretty, and you’re very charming, but weren’t you supposed to go get us a map?”

“Weren’t you supposed to get us a ride?”

“Yes, well.” Clara pointed at John. “I have, haven’t I?”

John tilted her head. “Something wrong with your vortex manipulator, ladies?”

“No,” both Clara and Rose said at the same time.

“Right.” John glanced between the two of them, then down at Rose’s wrist, on which sat the vortex manipulator. “Well, at least you haven’t lost it. I’ve parked the TARDIS right over there somewhere. Happy to pop you two home or… whenever?”

“That would be lovely, thanks,” Rose answered, looking in the general direction of ‘over there’.

Clara looked around too, but didn’t see the Police Box that Rose had described to her. “I’ve never been in the TARDIS before. Is it really b-”

John held up her hands, looking alarmed. “Shh. Not yet!”

Rose laughed and shook her head, and handed the mug of whatever-it-was to John. “Is it the same as it was? Dark and… glowy?”

“No, of course not.” John replied, then turned around, joining the hunt for the TARDIS as she took a sip of the mystery liquid. She wrinkled her nose. “Bit of an after-fizz, but not bad.”

“The TARDIS?”

“The drink.” 

Clara shook her head. “Okay, but big-” 

John spun on her heel and held a finger to Clara’s lips. “Really. Wait. It’ll be worth it.” 

“It’s bigger,” said a voice, seemingly from nowhere, “on the inside.”

John drew her eyebrows down and spun back around to pout unhappily at a tree. Clara realized it was a pine tree, and it most certainly didn’t belong on this planet, which from what she had seen mostly had trees that looked like large, purple house plants with feathers. She wondered why she hadn’t noticed before.

A door in the tree opened, which Clara attempted to take in stride, and a young woman stepped out. “Sorry, but it’ll still work. Nobody can really understand dimensional transcendentalism until they experience it for themselves.” 

Clara was fairly certain she knew those words, but they didn’t make a lot of sense altogether like that.

“It’s not blue anymore.” Rose took a step forward and gently touched the tree, as if expecting it to draw back.

“It never was,” John explained, stepping up behind her. It seemed like an intimate moment, with John standing so close to Rose, murmuring softly, and Clara took a deep breath to resist her initial, jealous reaction. She trusted Rose. John, she still wasn’t sure about, and was unsure she’d ever be sure. “This one’s grown from my original… the Doctor’s original. The chameleon circuit was never damaged.”

Clara wasn’t certain that John was correct in her assessment, and was about to suggest that perhaps a pine tree on an alien planet indicated at least a little bit of damage, when she saw the sad look on Rose’s face. Clara wanted to ask her about it, but decided it was better to wait until they were alone.

Rose stood for another moment, hand on the tree trunk, before she turned to the young woman, her face brightening. “Sorry, I forgot my manners. I’m Rose, and this is my girlfriend Clara.” 

“Rita,” said the woman. She was smiling, but Clara could tell she was also sizing them up. She wondered what John had told Rita about the two of them. “It’s nice to meet you, Rose and Clara.”

John cleared her throat. “Rita’s my friend. She travels with me.”

“I gathered.”

“She’s a doctor. I thought the TARDIS needed one, since I’m not anymore.”

“Well, you’re not the definite article, but you’re still a doctor, aren’t you?” Clara looked to Rose. “What did he call himself?”

“Doctor of everything.”

Clara nodded. “You can’t just unbecome a doctor of everything.”

“Thank you for the lesson, Miss Oswald.” There was something about the way John said it, over her shoulder and without making eye contact, that made Clara want slap her. So in that way, at least, John hadn’t changed much. She leaned over and glanced past Rita, into the TARDIS. “I told Rose and Clara that I’d give them a ride.” 

“Where are they going?”

“Good question, I hadn’t got to asking.” 

“What are you a doctor of?” Rose asked her own question instead of answering John and Rita’s. 

“Medicine.”

Rose laughed. “You never change, John.”

“What?”

“After me? A medical doctor?”

John hmmphed a bit. “How do you know there weren’t any others after you?”

Rita crossed her arms over her chest, and Clara held back a smile. Clearly, Rita was a bit jealous, herself. “Do you travel with a lot of women, Doctor?”

“People, in general. Sometimes not people.” John looked at Clara for a minute, thoughtfully, which worried Clara a bit. “Well, do you want to see dimensional transcendentalism for yourself, or not?”

Clara had the distinct feeling that that hadn’t been what John was really about to say, but instead she nodded her head. Rita stepped aside, further into the tree, and John and Rose followed her in.

“Oh,” was all Clara said at first, when it came down to it, because she really hadn’t been prepared for the experience, no matter how many times Rose had talked about what the TARDIS was like. It wasn’t just bigger on the inside, it was… everything on the inside. Even the one room they were in seemed vastly beyond what she could have imagined, as if the ceiling was up in the stars, even though she knew she was indoors. “It’s impossible.” 

John gave her that thoughtful look again, but just nodded. Rose came up beside her and took her hand, squeezing gently. “Toldya.” She looked at John. “I like the new desktop theme.”

“Thanks.” John smiled a big, genuine smile. “So, do you want me to look at your vortex manipulator?”

“Why?”

“Because it’s obviously broken, or else you wouldn’t need me to give you a ride.” John looked between the two of them. “Right?”

Clara and Rose shared a glance, and Rose held out her wrist. “It’s not that it’s broken. It works, it just doesn’t take us where we want to go.” 

“Sometimes that’s not a bad thing.” John leaned in and poked at it a bit, before taking it off Rose and laying it on the console.

“No sonic?”

John winked and pulled a pair of sunglasses from her jacket. She tapped the side and they made a sort of whirring, humming noise. 

“That,” Clara exclaimed, “is ridiculous.” 

“I know.” John smiled at her. “Rita, will you show the ladies to their room?”

“They have a room?”

“Everyone has a room.” She waved at Rita. “Keep walking, you’ll find it, no babies with time heads, please.”

Rita opened her mouth. Clara assumed to tell John that that’s not exactly how baby making worked for humans. But apparently she thought better of it, rolled her eyes, and gestured for Rose and Clara to follow her.

They walked for a few minutes in companionable silence, until Rose stopped in front of a door. “You’re kidding.” 

“Who’s kidding?”

“Everyone’s kidding.” She reached past Rita and opened the door. “It’s my room.”

“What?”

“From the Doctor’s TARDIS.” She wrinkled her nose. “I was really into pink.” 

Curious, Clara stepped past Rose and into the room. Met with an overwhelmingly pink room, Clara laughed. “Wow. I’ll say.” It wasn’t what she would have pictured Rose in, even the young Rose that she’d never known. “There are no bookshelves.”

“Of course that’s the first thing you’d notice.” Rose had come up behind Clara, and moved to stand next to her. “Not everyone has bookshelves in their bedroom, Clara.”

“Everyone ought to.” 

Rita cleared her throat. “I don’t think this is your room.”

“I just said -” 

Rita held up a hand. “Sorry, your plural. This must be your room, Rose, but not yours, Rose and Clara’s.” She shrugged. “The TARDIS is very odd. But the Doctor said she grew it from the old one. Maybe it has some sort of genetic memory of the past?”

“Like an instinct?” Clara asked.

“A bit, I suppose. But not exactly.” She screwed her nose up. “Like people who can play an instrument the first time they ever see it? But also not exactly that, either. Do you just want to move on?”

“Yes,” both Clara and Rose said at the same time, leaving the room and closing the door behind them. 

“You weren’t with John when you two traveled together, were you?”

Rose shook her head. “I technically never traveled with John. He came afterwards. And the Doctor and I weren’t,” she waved her hand. “Not while he was the Doctor. He once said that he couldn’t, but I never really understood that. And then John.” 

Clara nodded. Rita, for her part, kept silent. Clara imagined it was a weird conversation to be listening to, but then again this was a weird situation. After a few more moments of walking, Clara stopped. “Speaking of weird.” She looked at the door to her right, on which the number 11 was emblazoned in copper. Like an old hotel room.

“Very weird,” Rita whispered, then shivered.

Clara opened the door and peeked her head in. “Well at least this one has a lot of bookshelves.”

“And mirrors,” Rose teased, as she pushed the door open wide. “This is definitely not our room, either. How’s it possible for you to have a room here?”

“I don’t think it is.”

Rita looked at Clara thoughtfully, reminding her of the way John looked at her whenever she said certain things. It was unsettling. “Why the eleven?”

Clara shrugged. “I don’t know.” But as she pulled the door closed behind them, she noticed the number had changed. “It’s a twelve now, look.”

Rose shook her head. “I suppose this TARDIS is a bit of a prankster.” 

“That’s a very odd prank,” Rita pointed out, looking between the two of them and then back at the door.  
“Yeah.” Rose shrugged, but she looked thoughtful.

They walked on for another several minutes, now in silence, before finally finding a room that felt like theirs. It was a perfect blend of books and the frilly sort of things that Rose still liked keeping around, even though she’d moved on to different shades of pink. But by then, both were discomfited with what they’d seen in Clara’s room, and neither felt much like resting. 

So the trio made their way back to the main, console room, where Rose drifted over to check on the Doctor’s progress with their vortex manipulator, leaving Clara and Rita to chat with one another.

“So Rose and the Doctor used to… travel?”

Clara nodded. “A long time ago. She calls herself the Doctor with you? What was that whole thing about not being one anymore?”

“I don’t know. She said once that she might as well, because there wasn’t another one besides her traveling around.” Rita looked towards the console, where John was flipping switches and waving her hands around, showing Rose the new layout. “Though I’m not sure if that’s true. Maybe she only did it with me because I didn’t know better. You call her John?”

“When I met her, she was John Smith. Tall bloke, very skinny, tried really hard to pull off a beard.” Clara didn’t know if Rita knew about the whole regeneration thing, especially since nobody had thought it could even happen, but she also decided that it wasn’t her job to worry about John’s secrets. Unless they affected Rose. “He looked daft.”

Rita shook her head. “I can’t picture her as a man, but she said she’s mostly been men her whole life.”

Clara nodded. “That’s what Rose said.”

“And they were…together?”

“Yeah.” It was the past, Clara knew, but it was still odd to talk about one’s girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend with the ex-boyfriend-girlfriend’s traveling companion. “Are you?”

“Me? WIth her?” Rita shook her head. “No offense, but I’m not gay.” 

“Why would I be offended?” Clara smiled, eyes sparkling. “Besides, neither am I.”

“Ah, I’ve put my foot in my mouth. Sorry. I promise, I’m not nearly as awful as I sound right now. No, the Doctor and I aren’t together.”

Clara nodded and decided to let the matter drop for now. She also decided that she liked Rita. “Did she tell you the story of how she got here?”

“Here where?”

“To this universe.” 

Rita laughed, like she thought Clara was kidding, but when she realized that Clara was not, in fact, kidding, her laughter died and her smile faded. “Well clearly not, no.”

“Alright, well, it all started in a shop…”

**Author's Note:**

> The metacrisis Doctor received a piece of the TARDIS in a deleted scene from "Journey's End," though I think I already referenced that in another part of this series.
> 
> Rose sees a picture of the thirteenth Doctor (among others not yet seen on screen) at Clive's in the novelized version of "Rose" by Russell T. Davies. 
> 
> Rita should have traveled with the eleventh Doctor after the events of "The God Complex" (which I reference a bit with Clara's door), but the world is cruel and she died, and I thought she deserved a second chance, even though it's an alternate version of her.


End file.
